Echoes of Love: Redux
by DaughteroftheOneTrueKing
Summary: Hannah notices Neville is concerned and tries to talk to him.


**Hello all! Welcome to the next edition of my QLFC fics. This is a reserve fic for the Wasps seeker, Amy. I'm the Captain, which is sort of a conundrum for this round. We have to use the titles from different players to get inspiration. The seekers have to choose from the Captains titles. JEEZ! I choose Echoes of Love(enter shameless plug). Now, on to the story!**

 **Word Count: 1005**

As long as she could remember, Hannah Abbott had never thought of Neville Longbottom as particularly likable. The boy was a Gryffindor, first off, so they were quite different. While she was outgoing and helpful, Neville was awkward and accident prone. Professor Snape terrified him in classes, and he never stood up for himself.

The first time she thought of Neville Longbottom as more than just "the mess-up" was during their seventh year. She knew that things would be different, with Dumbledore dead and Snape Headmaster now, not to mention the fact that Voldemort was basically in full control of the Wizarding government.

Neville and a couple friends, Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley, rebanded the club that Harry had started in fifth year, the DA, as their own form of rebellion against Snape and the Carrows. Hannah, having been an original member, made it to the meetings every time they had one. It was almost eerie how well Neville seemed to fit in to the role, guiding the members in how to fix their spellcasting just as well as Harry had done.

"Keep your noses down, everyone," Ginny called through the crowd at the end of yet another meeting, around the end of January. "Yes, we're rebelling, but I'd like to see you all get through this intact."

Everyone started leaving the room in groups of two or three, attempting to appear innocent and uninteresting. Hannah was almost last, usually leaving with , she noticed Neville standing in a corner by the door, rubbing his neck as he stared at pictures of missing people and devastating events in the Muggle world taped onto the walls.

"Susan, go ahead, I left something. I'll be in the common room soon." Susan looked nervously at her friend, but decided to trust her.

"I'll go with Beth."

Hannah watched Susan leave with their friend Beth, and Luna and Ginny left after a minute. She walked over to see what Neville was looking at.

"Neville?" she asked lowly. "What's going on? Is something the matter?"

Neville slightly jumped at her voice, but relaxed. "It's nothing. Just the stress of everything going on right now, you know? I mean, things are just getting worse out there."

Hannah sighed as she thought of all the horrible tales they had heard from outside Hogwarts. Their news clippings were good, but they hadn't gotten many new ones in a long time.

"I think it's more than that," she said. "I'm pretty good at reading people. Please, tell me." With a chuckle, she said, "I'm Hufflepuff, you can trust that I'll keep it quiet."

Neville looked at her, his eyes darting from the pictures to her in indecision. Finally, his face turned resigned. "Okay, I suppose everyone will figure it out soon enough. I might have to disappear pretty soon."

Hannah's eyes widened in surprise. "What for? What's happened?"

Neville took a shaky breath, before speaking, his words coming out like they were poisonous and had to escape. "We've been causing trouble, you know that. Well, of course the Carrows don't like that, but they couldn't force me to behave with beatings and Crucio. They decided that they'd capture my gran and use her to get me to behave." He laughed slightly, but it was with very little actual humor. "She got away of course, Dawlish is in St. Mungo's. But now they have nothing against me, so I'm thinking that pretty soon they'll just get rid of me. I'm not letting that happen, so I'm planning to disappear before they can get to me. Maybe now, maybe in a few days, I don't know."

Hannah took in the words he said, letting them crash around her like violent waves. It was quite a shock to hear that it had come to this.

"No one knows where your gran is?" Hannah asked. "If she escaped, she's safe. If she could get past Dawlish, she's got to be a pretty powerful witch. I don't think she'll have any problem coming through this. And the thing I'm willing to bet, even though I don't know her, is that she wouldn't want you worrying about her."

Neville had relaxed after talking, as if a physical weight had been removed from him.

"It really helped to talk about it, thanks Hannah. You're a good listener. I hope I didn't make you afraid of me."

Hannah broke into a broad smile. "I'm glad you trusted me enough to tell me about it so quickly. Like I said, I'm not going to tell anyone or talk about it until people start getting the news from outside. I don't guess that will be for a while with how strict the mail combing system is."

Neville nodded. "I know." He looked at his pocket-watch, looking surprised as he saw the time. "We'd better go on our own, we'll be less conspicuous." Neville picked up his things and started to leave, hesitating as he was about to open the door. Hannah noticed his hand move a bit towards her own, almost as if… no, it couldn't be. "Hannah, thank you for being concerned." He then opened the door and quickly left.

Hannah stared at a small mirror on the wall, her mind not comprehending what had happened. Had Neville Longbottom nearly tried to hold her hand? She firmly agreed with that bit, it had been slight but there.

Had she wanted him to? That was a bit more difficult to answer. She was never very good at interpreting her own feelings, usually overthinking things and coming to very wrong or bad conclusions.

She shook her head, which didn't help her come to a conclusion. With an aggravated thrust of her hands, she punched the wall, which didn't do very much. It was just a shadow of a dent, nothing that anyone would notice. Hannah still felt annoyed at herself, and so simply snatched up her bag and rushed out of the room, her thoughts following her all the way to Hufflepuff Common Room.


End file.
